Sunday morning started off with a visit from our neighborhood outdoor cat. Elena is not sure what to make of the kitty, but she's very interested in him.
On Monday, I went on a lunch adventure with some friends. We were trying to find a sandwich place that had been recommended to us, but when we got there, we found out they only serve sandwiches on the weekend. There were lots of other restaurants on the street, and we ended up at one that was a restaurant/antique store. It was strange, but the food was good.
The name didn't really make sense, and based on the food/beer menu, I think it was a German/Thai place.
On of the bathrooms had some very graphic pictures, and a television playing music videos with gyrating women, so I'm not sure what it's like after dark, but for lunch, we were the only customers, and it was perfectly nice. One of the best parts of lunch was that we decided to do a book club, and our first book will be The Goldfinch, so I will need to use some of my coursework-free time to read that.
I saved Tuesday for household things, since I knew we had to go to the supermarket, and Young told me we needed to go to Makro as well to stock up on cleaning supplies. I've been trying to figure out what to do about a Christmas tree, and at Makro they had a seven foot tall fake one for about $50, so I decided that would do for this year, and I bought it. It's going to be kind of a pain to put together, because it's the kind where you put each branch in to the center, but since all the pieces are long and narrow it fits easily in a small box. I figure I'll trade thirty minutes of annoying assembly for eleven months of convenient storage.
Wednesday was another lunch day. I posted some pictures from last week's trip to the Blue Sky Cafe on Facebook, and several of my friends who hadn't gone yet, said they wanted to go. Now that I know how to get there, I offered to lead another lunch group. It ended up being five of us, so we had to use a golf cart that has an extra two seats on the back. I'm thinking we might want to add the extra seats too, because it comes in handy when you have visitors. I managed to get an outside shot of Blue Sky Cafe this time.
It's really cute, but I'm worried about how long it will stay in business. They didn't charge us for one thing when I went the first time, and they didn't charge us for two things this time. Since we were all splitting the bill, we noticed and told them, but it's hard to make a profit if you're giving away free food.
On Thursday, I was supposed to go downtown with my neighbor to explore a mall called Platinum and then hit the commissary for Thanksgiving supplies, but we had a last minute change of plans. There was a posting on the expats Facebook site saying that a company was auditioning blond boys between the ages of five and eight to be in a television commercial. The commercial is going to be shot in the beach town of Phuket, and the company will pay for the flight and hotel stay. One of our friends figured there was nothing to lose by sending in her son's picture, and he got called to audition. Obviously she was excited, and really nervous. She also wasn't sure if the whole thing was legit, so we drove her and her son to the audition to check it out.
We got to the neighborhood almost half an hour before she needed to be at the audition, so we found a shopping center with a Starbucks and hung out for a while. The central court area was covered, and had colorful umbrellas hanging down from the beams. I thought it was really pretty and went outside to take a picture. It wasn't until I aimed my camera up that I realized what else my picture was going to capture.
I don't know what they're selling in the Playboy store, but I've seen lots of the bunny stickers on cars, nice cars too, that women got out of, so I really don't understand.
After we finished our snack, we spent about ten minutes driving up and down a road until we finally found the little studio. Shortly after we showed up, several other women we knew showed up with their blond sons, and we felt okay leaving our friend with them.
At that point we were off to the north east of downtown, and we figured it would be better to explore in that area. The closest big mall is called Esplanade, so we went there. As a mall, it wasn't much. We found a place, which I guess was essentially Japanese fast food and ate there.
My friend had sashimi, which was served in a very pretty dish and shaped like a rose, but seemed like a brave choice for the kind of restaurant it was. My sushi had so much mayonnaise in it that I just couldn't eat it. Luckily the won tons were fine.
After lunch, we explored. It's not a very big mall, so there wasn't anything there that we couldn't find at our mall, except for three things on the fourth floor. There's a big bowling alley and karaoke place, where you can rent a room for karaoke. The fourth floor also has an Art in Paradise exhibit, which is this cool 3D art thing where you can stand in the painting and take a picture. That is definitely on my list of things to do with Vivian. Finally, the mall also has a full scale theater in it, and it turns out that it's the theater where they're doing the Broadway Beauty and the Beast in February and March. I was so excited, because they have signs advertising it downtown, but you can't buy tickets online. I found out why when I bought our tickets. They are little plastic cards.
They were quite expensive, so I only got two, and I figure it'll be up to Jeff if he wants to take Vivi or not. I love the show, but I've already seen it three times.
On Friday, I told one of my friends that I would help her out with the American room for international day. She had said to show up at 8:30, and I didn't ask any more questions. I will from now on. It turned out, it was a full day of re-enacting an American county fair for all the first grade classes, who cycled through the room during the school day. My friend had told me to wear jeans and a white t-shirt, and when I showed up, I got a cowboy hat and a patriotic apron.
At least the American clothes were comfortable and relatively cool. One of my friends in the Indonesian room had on a traditional outfit that looked like it was made of velvet. I was in charge of the fishbowl toss (ping pong balls into a bucket full of plastic cups with water and plastic fish in them) and the duck pond/prize drawing station. It was a fun day, but a lot of standing and a lot of saying the same thing over and over again to kids, which I haven't done in quite a while.
It turned out to be too long a day for me and Vivian, since she was being really rude when we got home, and I didn't have the patience for it, so I just put her in time out, where she proceeded to have an epic crying and screaming fit. When she finally calmed down, and we talked about it, I found out that all she'd had to eat at school was a banana for snack, corn for lunch, and the blueberry banana smoothie I got for her after school (which she didn't thank me for, sucked down and asked for more, which was part of what got me angry in the first place and now made perfect sense). My take aways from the day were that I need to start packing a lunch for Viv, and I should remember to ask not only what time I should show up for stuff, but also when it will end.
Today we have a birthday party, and I bought tickets for Vivian and I to go see the high school's production of Hairspray. I'm really hoping we manage to make it through the day without either one of us losing it. I also need to try and take it a little easier on my next week "off".
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